Defiance

As I've said many times, Anne's whole life has been a series of valleys and mountain tops. She's been in a valley for a while (one which I am not convinced at all has anything to do with her brother and everything to do with her being nearly 3-which in case you didn't know is the new 2). One thing I've noticed the past few weeks is some of her eating habits. She's 3 (almost) so I can excuse a lot of things to her being picky and crabby and exerting her independence. I'm fine with a lot of that because it's a normal phase that's healthy for her to go through. However, these new eating habits are not okay. I've mainly noticed her asking for a specific food, one she likes, me giving it to her and her eating a bite or two of it and being done. Not only is this extra work for me I don't need, but it's wasteful. So I've started telling her if she asks for something specific she needs to eat it all. I am not a member of the clean plate club, but here, I am putting my foot down. Hopefully by making her eat what she has asked for, she will start to decide if 1. she really wants to eat it and 2. if she wants a lot or a little of it. The second bad food habit she's started this week is holding food in her mouth. If it's something she doesn't like (last night it was spinach-how stereotypical is that?) she will chew it for minutes at a time, never swallowing. Today she combined both. She had leftover hamburger from a restaurant that she specifically asked for and ate 2 bites at the restaurant. Today for lunch I gave her 1/4 of the hamburger, 4 fries and 1 strawberry. I know toddlers have small stomachs, but this is not at all asking too much for her to eat all of this. She ate everything except the meat patty. Since she asked for it at the restaurant and didn't eat it, I was very insistent she eat all of it. She took one bite and proceeded to chew it for over 10 minutes. This is not an exaggeration. I actually timed it. So I told her she was going to sit at the table until she finished her hamburger. Total lunch time today to eat 1/4 hamburger, 4 fries and 1 strawberry: an hour and a half.